The World We Live In
by Abstruse fangirl
Summary: Martha Jones looks at the world, Post Children of Earth


Beta: persiflage_1

Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Whoniverse or the land of Torchwood. All belongs to the BBC; I just like to play around a bit with the characters.

A/N: Spoilers for Torchwood: Children of Earth (all five days)

* * *

It was a cool day outside, even for this time of year. Martha paced back and forth across the Roald Dahl Plass, her mobile gripped tightly in her hand. She pressed a series of buttons to unlock the keys, and scrolled through her text messages until she arrived at the right one.

07:27AM _Need to stop in Cardiff and top off. Fancy a cuppa?_

She'd received it while she'd been on assignment for UNIT, foraging through the remains of the Torchwood Hub. Government agencies of every sort (including UNIT) had gone over the area with a fine tooth comb in the hopes of determining what truly had happened there, and seeing if any of Torchwood's many alien artifacts could be salvaged from the wreckage.

For Martha, the trip had been both mentally and physically exhausting. Ever since she'd set foot back in the United Kingdom, she'd been bombarded with phone calls, voicemails, text messages, emails, faxes, more phone calls, and more emails.

And none of these had given her a conclusive lead as to the whereabouts of several missing individuals, not the least of which was Captain Jack Harkness.

Four months after the 456 had made their demands of the people of the earth, the work of piecing together exactly what had happened continued.

07:32 AM _Sure._  
07:33 AM _Noon alright with you?_  
07:37 AM _Sure. See you then. _

Martha looked down at her watch and shivered a bit as she paced. She remembered the first time she'd entered the hub. Jack had called the voice of a nightingale. She supposed that was a step up from a banjo playing prophet.

11:37 AM _So, Doctor Jones… Turns out I'm running a bit behind. Quite literally in fact. Have I ever told you that txting & chasing down Zygons isn't as EZ as it looks? Who_  
11:37 AM _would have thought that Zygons would start taking the form of Olympic sprinters on the planet Terachulon during the 357th Intergalactic Olympiad?Anyway, fancy_  
11:38 AM _Damn this infernal character limit! What I really meant to say, Martha, is fancy dinner instead?_  
11:40 AM _Running behind? In a time machine? Figures. _  
11:41 AM _And dinner would be lovely._  
11:45 AM _7 o'clock OK?_  
11:47 AM _7 sounds great.. Catch that Zygon yet?_  
11:50 AM _Almost. Apparently they've taken over an entire Relay Team. GTG. _  
11:51 AM _LOL Good luck, Doctor. See you soon._

Martha stopped mid-stride and smiled a bit as the wind began to pick-up. She was exceedingly happy that today she wasn't the one who'd shown up late.

_____________________________________________________________

"And then Jack just disappeared. Not a word, not a goodbye, not a trace. He was just…gone."

Gwen wrapped her hands around the porcelain mug and stared out in the middle distance somewhere just beyond Martha's shoulder, unable to look her in the eye. Guilt and anger battled within her for a moment before finally giving way to helplessness.

"I'm so sorry, Gwen. I wish I could have done something, anything, to help."

Gwen turned back to Martha, and saw something in her eyes that she'd once seen in Jack's, something that whispered of understanding, sorrow, and loss.

"Funny thing is, it was my idea to not bother you, what with you being on honeymoon and all. Maybe if we had…"

Martha reached across the small café table and covered Gwen's hand with her own. The gesture was simple, comforting. They both knew that even if Martha had been there, precious little would have changed.

The less important children of the world would still have been offered to the 456.

The governments of the world would have gone to war against their own people.

And somewhere, to ensure the survival of an entire planet, a child would have needed to die.

"How's Ianto's family?" Martha asked after the moment had passed.

Gwen shrugged and placed her mug back upon the matching saucer.

"Oh, fine I suppose, all things considered. They've had a lot of questions, about Ianto, about Jack, about Torchwood. About the 456." Gwen sighed before looking back across at Martha. "We've all been dealing with our losses in our own way. Sometimes I forget that we're not the only ones who lost someone. It's just…"

Gwen paused as a helicopter flew overhead, no doubt heading for the M4 to report on the never-ending build-up of traffic around Cardiff. She didn't want to cry here, in this outdoor café, so exposed to the world. But between the empathy in Martha's eyes, the gentle pressure still on her hand, and the hormones freely flowing through her body, she found that she could not stop the first few tears from spilling over.

"It's just, that Doctor. The one that you and Jack go on about. He's saved the world so many times. And I'm sure that most of the time we didn't even know he was there. But it seemed like now, when we needed him, when the whole world needed him, he just turned his back on us." Gwen raised her free hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. "Are we that horrid, Martha? Is he that ashamed of the thing we've become?"

Gwen slid her hand free of Martha's grasp and wiped away the tears which had melted the makeup covering her cheeks. Her freckles were beginning to show in the sunlight of an early Cardiff morning, and Martha couldn't help thinking how young Gwen looked.

Truth be told, she was older than Martha. But she'd seen less of the world ending, less of the dark side of humanity than Martha had. And everything she'd seen could only leave her with one question: why.

"Why, Martha? Why didn't he come?"

Martha sighed, the weight she carried on her shoulders evident as she wrapped her arms around herself to keep out the morning chill that the coffee could not. She'd thought the same thing herself, all those sleepless nights after long days spent at UNIT headquarters debriefing personnel, running various tests on a sampling of children.

Why hadn't the Doctor come? He'd been here to stop the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Master a dozen times over. But not the 456.

Perhaps Gwen was right. Did the Doctor ever look at this planet, this beautiful, conflicted, polluted, limitless planet, and turn his head away in shame?

'Or, perhaps' thought Martha, 'it was because it wasn't the 456 who'd needed stopping.'

She unwrapped her arms and raised a hand to signal to the server for more coffee.

"I don't know. We're not the only planet the Doctor looks after, you know. There's an entire universe out there, Gwen, an entire universe that needs looking after. And in that entire universe, he's the only one left to do it. I guess," Martha said as she nodded a thank you to the server for the refill, "that sometimes we just have to look after our ourselves."

Gwen snorted.

"Fat lot of good that did."

"A corrupt Prime Minister is out of office, nearly the entire cabinet's been replaced. The Home Office is being restructured. UNIT's revising its policies on the rules of engagement. The United Nations is looking at Britain, at the United States, and demanding that changes be made. That's something."

Martha took a sip of the warm liquid in front of her in the hopes of thwarting the chill that had begun to form inside of her, a chill which she knew had very little to do with the early morning hour.

"People have died, Martha. You can't just write that off."

Martha shook her head and put her cup back down.

"I'm not. It's just that I've seen the end of the world Gwen, the end of everything. And the one thing that it taught me is that for humanity to go on, someone must die. Those are the rules. We don't have to like it, we can try to stop it, but in the end, the days are rare when everyone lives."

Martha looked around at the increasing number of people hurrying along the busy street, lattes and smart phones in hand, on their way to the start another day of life and continue with the illusion that the world did not almost end. She reached down and picked up her handbag, slinging it over her shoulder as she got up from the little metal chair.

She slid her hands into her pockets, cursing her lack of gloves as Gwen slowly rose up and did the same.

"I know it's not much of a consolation," she began as Gwen slung her bag across her shoulder, "but look around you. This," she said as she gestured to the people hurriedly making their way up and down the street "this is what we do it for. This is why we do what we do. To keep the people of earth safe. And taking on that risk, accepting that responsibility, can sometimes mean that while the rest of world totters on, you & I don't. That while the rest of humanity wins, we lose. But, in the end, it's what we signed up for. All of us, Ianto, Jack, Tosh, Owen. We can't rely on the Doctor or any one else to save us, Gwen. We've got to step up and look after ourselves."

"I know," Gwen replied, looking out at the crowds of passersby. "It's just that sometimes, I wish that these people, all these daft people with their lattes and their iPhones and their lazy Sundays knew what people like us, what people like Jack, have sacrificed just so that they can go on about their business, not giving a shit if the sun rises or sets."

Martha reached out and put her hand on Gwen's and pulled her into an embrace.

"They may never know," she said as she hugged her friend, "but we do. And that's why we keep on fighting. So that maybe, one day, the earth will be threatened, humanity will be saved, and everybody, Gwen, everybody will live."

Martha released her friend and blinked back the tears that had formed at the corners of her own eyes. Sometimes she wondered if the life she'd chosen, following in the Doctor's footsteps, protecting the earth, had changed her in all the wrong ways. As she looked at the people around her, 'all these daft people with their lattes and iPhones' tottering on about their uneventful lives, she chose to believe that it hadn't.

"Well, I'd best be going," Gwen said as she shielded her eyes from the sun. "Rhys is meeting me at the doctor's office. Going to find out the sex of the baby today."

Martha smiled and put her hand on Gwen's belly.

"Picked out any names yet?"

"Oh, a few," Gwen said with a smile. "But we're still whittling the list down. Rhys won't let go of Edward though. Says if it's a boy, it's got to be named Edward."

"Edward's a good name."

"It is." Gwen covered her mouth as she snickered. "But god help this baby if it's a girl!"

The two friends smiled and laughed, reveling in a moment of normalcy amidst two lives that were anything but.

"It was good to see you, Martha Jones."

"And it was good to see you too, Gwen Cooper. Williams."

Gwen reached out and hugged Martha again, squeezing tightly before letting go.

"Well, goodbye then."

The two friends held hands for a few moments longer before letting each go, to return back to their lives. Martha stood next to the café for a few moments, watching Gwen walk back down the street, before turning and walking in the opposite direction.

There were still so many questions being asked, and she had precious little time to try and uncover the answers before her next appointment that day.

She was determined that this time she would not be the one who was late.

___________________________________________________________

"Right then. I believe we agreed on 19:00pm, not 20:00 o'clock."

"Blimey, Martha. It's good to see you too."

The Doctor stepped out the TARDIS, shrugging on his long, brown overcoat. His blue suit looked a little worse for the wear, but otherwise, thought Martha, he looked just as she had remembered him.

He made quick work of closing the distance between them, picking her up off the ground and twirling her around.

"Well, hello to you too, Doctor!"

Martha laughed as the Doctor twirled her one last time before planting her feet firmly on the ground. The Doctor smiled back as he released her, before crooking his right elbow.

"Shall we then, Miss Jones?"

"Indeed we shall Mr. Smith."

The two walked on, past the remains of the Torchwood Hub, down a small side street, before turning right and heading to a small Italian restaurant overlooking the bay.

"Italian?" Martha mused as the Doctor held the door open for her.

"Yep," he said stepping inside behind her. "Had to make a pit stop in 12th Century Rome. You would not believe the hankering I have for some Aubergine Parmigiana!"

"Ah," said Martha as the hostess showed them to a small table towards the rear. "Were there Bane trying to take over the Imperial Palace or something?"

"Oi!" replied the Doctor as he grabbed one of the garlic rolls from the basket in front of him. "Since when do you know about the Bane?"

"Hello?" Martha said as she tore off a piece of one of the rolls. "Senior Medical Officer for UNIT?"

"Ah, yes," said the Doctor stuffing the entire roll in his mouth and licking his fingers. "Given you a promotion then?"

"Yeah," Martha replied as she tore off another piece of the roll. "From Project Indigo to head of the Alien Virus Inoculation project; I-noc for short. Blimey, these are good." She tore off another piece and popped it into her mouth.

"Oh, Enoch! He was a nice fellow. Very down to earth, not nearly as uptight as everyone made him out to be. Very talented at playing the lute. And, a very good dancer. Taught me a thing or two about the Virginia Reel. Only it wasn't called the Virginia Reel back then. More like the Euphrates Reel or something like that. Not very catchy. Told him it wouldn't catch on."

The Doctor reached into the basket to pull the last garlic ball from within the red napkin, but Martha swatted his hand out of the way.

"Hey, mister! Let someone else have one."

The Doctor pulled his hand back and made a silent 'ow' face while shaking his right hand.

"They will bring us more, you know."

"I know," Martha said. "But right now I'm famished."

"Hard day at the office?" the Doctor asked, his right eyebrow arched ever-so slightly.

"You could say that," Martha replied non-committally.

"Well then," he said as he took the bottle of red wine from the side of table and filled up her glass. "Tell me all about it. Starting with that, what was it? Alien Virus Inoculation Project?"

Martha smiled and took a sip of the wine. It was good, not too bold, with spicy undertones.

"Well, Project I-Noc actually got started about four months ago, after the arrival of the 456." She paused for a moment, looking for a reaction from the Doctor. When she got none, she decided to continue on with her story. "I was actually on my honeymoon when everything happened, trapped in the Australian outback with Tom." Martha smiled briefly at the memory of the way it felt to be away from everything, to have nothing else to worry about other than the happiness she felt there in the moment, with Tom. She tucked the memory away and continued on. "But being that I was the UNIT MO on duty, I got put in charge of cleaning up the aftermath. Medically speaking."

The Doctor leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.

"Go on," he said, much gentler than she would have expected.

So she did. She told him all about the arrival of the 456, the synchronized chanting of children across the globe, the measures that both the US and Great Britain had been ready to undertake in order to get rid of them, and how UNIT had assisted in carrying out their plans.

He interrupted her only once.

"And where's this Colonel Oduya now?" the Doctor asked, a hint of anger hidden in his question.

"Relieved of duty."

"Ah."

"UNIT's gone through a bit of a reboot in the month's following the 456 debacle."

"Good."

Martha smiled, and continued her story. She told him what Gwen had told her, about Ianto, and Jack, and Jack's family. About what Jack had done to save not only the children of the world, but the future of humanity, both in 1965 and in 2009.

"And then," Martha finished, "he just disappeared. No one's been able to find him. His mobile's been disconnected; and we know he doesn't have his vortex manipulator."

She paused as the Doctor again raised an eyebrow at her statement.

"It was recovered in the wreckage of the Hub."

He nodded, so she continued.

"There's been no sign of the 456 since then, and no evidence that the children were infected with any sort of virus or pathogen."

"But that still hasn't stopped you from looking."

"No," Martha said. "It hasn't."

She thought about the parts she'd left out of the story, about Tom returning to Africa after they'd gotten the news of what had happened. About the phone calls she'd received from her mother, her father, her sister. From Leo. About his girlfriend's niece being pulled out of school and forced onto a bus by armed soldiers. About how he & Shonnara had fought their way through a horde of other parents to pull Keisha out of nursery school, and had barely turned the corner before the military had arrived.

About how all of them, and so many others had asked her the question which had burned in her mind from the moment that she'd set foot again on British soil.

'Where, in all of this, was the Doctor?'

Martha hadn't realized how long she'd sat there at the table, tearing her garlic roll into pieces, not saying a word.

"Martha," the Doctor said gently, reaching out to place his hand over hers.

"Oh," she said, bringing herself back to the present. "Yeah. So, um, that was it really. In the end Jack was able to figure out how to deal with the 456 by retransmitting the same signal they'd use to kill that bloke who'd been helping them, Clement Mc Donald."

"I see."

"Unfortunately the one way to do that---" Martha began.

"Is by using a child as a template to retransmit the signal," said the Doctor.

"Yeah. And the only child anywhere near Jack at the time…"

Martha found that despite knowing what had happened, and knowing that what Jack had done had saved the entire human race from extinction, she wasn't able to see her friend as the sort of man who would sacrifice his own grandchild to save the world. Up until this morning, she hadn't even known that he'd been a father, let alone a grandfather. She'd always imagined Jack as the sort to Kiss & Run, never staying behind long enough to have attachments, or a family.

Knowing that for whatever brief time (comparatively for his lifespan) he'd had those things just made it even harder to accept.

She took a deep breath, and continued.

"The only child anywhere near Jack at the time, was his grandson, Steven."

She took a gulp of her wine and reached for the bottle to refill her cup.

The Doctor sat there silently, running his hand across his face, processing all of the information that she had given to him.

"Oh, Martha," he said as he leaned forward in his chair. "I am so sorry."

"Yeah."

"I wish…I wish things could have turned out differently."

Maybe it was the glasses of red wine that she'd consumed, or the look of helplessness on Gwen's face as she recounted to destruction of Torchwood over tea and biscuits, or the faces of her own family as they'd alternately hugged her and shaken her, and implored her for answers.

Whatever it was, she couldn't stop the dam from bursting forth and running over.

"Well, maybe if you would have been here, it would have."

There. She'd said. What everyone had been thinking. She'd acknowledged the Judoon in the room, and kept her calm while doing it.

The Doctor sat there, looking at her, those intense eyes boring into her own. They'd seen so much loss, so much pain. They'd watched as new empires had been forged and mighty civilizations had burned. More than a few at his own hand.

"No, it wouldn't have."

Martha jerked her head up and stared at the Doctor. Surely he didn't just say what she thought he said.

"What?"

"Martha, if I would have been here, all those things which happened, all of the people who died. It still would have happened."

Martha shook her head as if trying to dislodge a particularly unpleasant dream.

"But…I don't understand. If you would have been here, Doctor, you could have saved us. Stopped the 456. Prevented any of the horrible things which happened from taking place."

The Doctor looked back at Martha and slowly shook his head. She saw the sad look in his eyes. She knew that look. It usually accompanied something he couldn't change.

"That's not how it works Martha."

"Oh isn't it?" she snorted. "Then enlighten me."

The Doctor leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, as if trying to corral his thoughts into some workable explanation of time, and space, and life, and death.

"This event, Martha, with the 456, was a fixed point in history. More specifically, it was a fixed point in Jack's personal history, his timeline."

He sat up straight in his chair and poured himself a glass of the rapidly depleting wine.

"I don't understand. How can Jack's timeline be fixed?"

"Remember Martha, back when you first met Jack? I said he was a fixed point in time, a fact. That means that everything that he does becomes irreversible. It becomes a fact. Like Mount Vesuvius erupting or the great earthquake of 1906. And once it becomes a fact, it can't be changed."

Martha held up her hand to interrupt the Doctor.

"So you're saying, that once Jack offered those twelve children to the 456 in 1965, he set off a chain of events in earth's history that could not be changed? Not even by you?"

"That," the Doctor said as he leaned back to allow their server to place his plate in front of him "is exactly what I'm saying. Once the 456 — who incidentally aren't even called the 456–"

"Well, then, what are they called?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said as she picked up his fork and knife. "But the 456? Give me a break." He cut into the Eggplant Parmigiana, put a piece into his mouth, and chewed it thoughtfully. "Definitely better than 12th Century Rome," he muttered.

"Doctor."

"Oh, yes!" the Doctor said looking sheepishly at Martha. "Right, well like I said, once certain things have happened or been set in motion to happen, there's nothing that can be done to change them. Or, sometimes, nothing should be done to change it."

"And you know this because?"

The Doctor sighed and put down his utensils.

"Because, I'm a Time Lord, Martha. It's how I see the world. All the what-ifs and what-nots, what can never be's. That's how I see it all, every second. Some points in time, like the five days of hell that you lot went through, are fixed. Others, are in flux."

He picked up his utensils and began again cutting up his food into bite-sized pieces.

"But Doctor, I've seen you! I've seen you literally re-write the history of entire civilizations on a whim."

"Have you?"

The Doctor's words were soft, but his gaze was not.

"And this time, with the lives of millions of children at stake, wasn't one of those time?"

"No, Martha, it wasn't."

Martha sat back and allowed the steaming plate before to cool as she thought about what the Doctor was implying.

"So that means that you knew. About Jack, the twelve children in 1965. The 456 — and yes I know that's not their name- coming back here, in 2009."

"Yes. And no."

"But you did nothing, said nothing. No warning, no nothing. And what do you mean: yes and no. It's either yes, or no, Doctor. Please," Martha said as she spread her napkin across her lap, "no more mind games. People have died. People I liked. And unlike Jack, they're never coming back."

"I'm sorry, Martha. I truly am. If I could have done something — anything — to have changed what happened to your friends, to Jack's family, I would have. But I couldn't. I knew what Torchwood did in 1965. I knew that somehow, in 2009, the 456 were stopped from abducting millions of children. I also know that at no point in the next 5,000 years of Earth history is there any mention of them coming back."

The Doctor pushed around the pieces of eggplant on his plate as he felt his once voracious appetite begin to fade.

"What I didn't know was who stopped them, in 1965 or 2009."

"And if you had known?"

The Doctor said nothing, but continued to eat his food. Martha knew when she'd reached her limit with him, when he'd been pushed as far as he would go.

"I see."

And really and truly, she did.

They finished up their pasta in companionable silence, the Doctor thinking over everything that had happened and still would happen here on this backwater planet that he loved so fiercely, Martha thinking over everything that had happened, and things that needed to be changed so that it was never allowed to happen again.

About 20 minutes later, they'd begged off from dessert (although the Tiramisu looked lovely), and the Doctor paid for their dinner.

'It was,' he said 'the least that he could do.'

Martha walked the Doctor back to the TARDIS, who he estimated should be just about done refilling from the rift. It was a quiet walk, but not an unpleasant one.

It seemed that the longer she knew him, the more Martha came to understand exactly what made the Doctor who he was.

Being the last of the Time Lords wasn't a weight which was made to be borne alone.

About two blocks away from where the TARDIS was sitting, quietly refueling itself on the very same energy that wreaked havoc on the city above, Martha linked her arm through the Doctor's. He smiled and placed his hand atop hers.

Though he'd not mentioned it, he'd been keenly aware of it. Of everything that Martha had not mentioned when describing the 456: her family, her friends, Tom. He figured that she'd fill him in on those details in her own time.

He knew when to push, and when to pull back. It was one of the many things that she had taught him.

The fog was starting to roll in from the bay by the time they finally reached the TARDIS. They both stood in front of her for a while, each thinking back to the last time they'd been here, with her in Cardiff.

Martha remembered the nonchalant way the Doctor had continued to send the TARDIS into the Vortex despite the yells and hand waving of the rather handsome man in military garb on the view screen.

The Doctor remembered the feel of time, how it had whispered in his ear, crept up his spine, and wound itself around his neck. He'd felt as if he'd never breathe again. He was wrong, so very wrong. A fact.

Everything he'd ever known told him to get as far away from Jack Harkness and his long & sordid timeline as possible. So he did. Even the TARDIS had tried to run away from him.

He'd run all the way to the end of the universe, and still he'd not been able to out run himself. Perhaps it was time for him to stop running, and to start facing the demons hidden in the shadows.

It occurred to him (not for the first time) that the older he got, the more willing he'd become to admit his mistakes.

"Well then," Martha said as she disentangled herself from the Doctor. "Here we are."

"Indeed we are."

Martha reached up and wrapped her arms around the Doctor. They stood there for a moment longer, two doctors, trying to tell themselves that they could never fix what wasn't broken.

In the end it was Martha who pulled away.

"You take care of yourself, yeah?" she said, playfully swatting him on the arm.

"Oh, yeah. You know me."

The Doctor looked down at Martha, a small smile adorning his lips that didn't quite reach his eyes. This was a look she remembered as well, though she'd only seen it once before, in a cold, damp alleyway on an alien planet, a million billion miles away from home.

"I am sorry, Martha. For everything."

And somehow, she knew that he was.

"So," she said, picking at a non-existent thread on her coat. "How is he?"

"How is who?"

She looked up at him, and for the first time that night, the Doctor saw what this whole ordeal had meant to Martha Jones.

"Don't play daft, Doctor. How is he?"

"He's fine. Healing. Recovering. Traveling."

"How long has it been for him?"

"Long enough for him to realize the effects of what he did, and to learn to live with it."

"But not long enough for him to forgive himself."

"Oh, Martha…." The Doctor said as he stared off into the evening sky. "Do you know there are planets, a million, billion, trillion light years away from here that are being colonized by humans, where humans are the first sentient beings ever to set foot onto them? That there are men and women and children, thousands of years from now, playing in the swamps of Agobar, or the fields of Kyrillian VII? All of them, happy and free and oh so human."

The Doctor paused, and lowered his eyes from the sky.

"All of that, because of Jack," Martha said, her voice cracking.

"Yes."

"And still he can't forgive himself," Martha looked up at the stars in the sky, thought of the planets she'd visited, the people she'd seen.

She'd fallen into a swamp once, on one of those planets that was teeming with humans, inquisitive, pioneering humans who'd made their way out amongst the stars, ready to see what lay out there, beyond the relative unknown.

"Will he ever forgive himself?"

"In time."

Martha hadn't realized she'd said it aloud until the Doctor answered.

"But not yet?"

"No, not yet."

Martha wiped away the tears that ran down her cheeks and turned back to look at the Doctor.

"Promise me you'll look out for him?"

The Doctor smiled, a smile she not only knew, but loved to see.

"Always."

"Good." She leaned up and kissed the Doctor on the cheek. "Goodbye then."

The Doctor wrapped his arms around her briefly, picking her up one more time before gently setting her back down upon the gravel and debris that had once made up the foundation of Torchwood 3.

"Goodbye, Martha Jones."

Martha turned and began to walk away from the TARDIS satisfied that the Doctor would make good on his promise, and that one day, maybe even on this old planet that they called home, she'd see Jack again, swaggering up the pavement in his dark blue jacket, smiling as if he owned the world.

She heard the engines of the TARDIS begin to grind and she stopped turning round to watch the ship disappear.

"Goodbye, Doctor," she said quietly as the ship faded from view. And then for no reason at all added "goodbye Jack."

Martha Jones waited until every trace that the Doctor and his ship had once sat upon the Roald Dahl Plass was gone before turning round and walking back towards her hotel. It was getting late, and she need to rest.

Tomorrow would be a busy day.


End file.
